Warning: Installer problem. Please read Common Problems before installing. If you have an i686 system (most new computers), then enter:linux i686
when booting the first disc. This is required if upgrading an existing Fedora installation.

I did a Custom Install of Fedora Core 6.

Partitioning

If you have an empty harddrive or wish to delete the entire contents of your drive, then let the installer automatically partition or remove everything and partition.

If you wish to dual-boot or save some contents on your drive, then select custom partitioning. I recommend at least 3 partitions: a 10GB / main partition, a 10GB /home partition and a 1GB <swap> partition. The main partition is where your applications will be installed. The /home partition will hold all your personal data (larger is better). The <swap> should be at least as large as your physical memory (if you wish to support things like ACPI hibernate).

Boot Loader

If you have a blank harddrive or wish Fedora to be your Primary Operating System, then leave the default options here. This also works for dual booting with other systems (ex: Windows).

If wish to preserve Windows as your primary operating system, then install Grub on the / partition, NOT the MBR. To do this, select Configure Advanced Boot Loader Options and install to First sector of boot partition. I use Bootpart from Windows 2000 to load Linux. An alternative to Bootpart is the NT OS Loader + Linux mini-HOWTO (also Grub Win2K Howto). I recommend this so you do not corrupt your Windows installation in a Dual-Boot environment. [NOTE] There is an example configuration available. This takes more work, the default option on the MBR will also work.

<!–

Network Setup
Linux is designed as a networking operating. If you have any high speed connection…

!–>

General Package Selection
The primary options for installation are the following. You can select these and skip individual package selection (next step) if you plan to install most of your software. It is recommended you at least pick certain applications.

Office and Productivity – [Highly Recommended]

Software Development – [Highly Recommended / Required]

Web Server – [Optional (useful for web developers)]

Fedora Extras – [NOT Recommended at Install time]. If you select Fedora Extras, this will give access to MANY more applications than included on the CD’s or DVD. However this requires a high-speed internet access that is detected by the Fedora Installer. This will also significantly increase the installation time.

If you select Customize now you will be taken to the Individual Package Selection.

Individual Package Selection – apx 3.7-4.1GB. – This step should NOT be skipped to make sure you grab a some specific important packages. You are free to select whatever you want. The following in my experience are common useful suggestions: Warning: When using the Fedora Core Add/Remove Software application you will require a valid internet connection – preferrably high speed. It is recommended that you carefully select everything that you need during this installation step.

Note: There is a hidden option to select multiple packages. You can Right-Click over a major section (ex: KDE) and Select or Deselect all optional components.

[Optional] – Remove Java if you wish, you will still have to install Sun Java software later.

[Required] – Add Legacy Software Support.

[Recommended] – Add System Tools.

[NOT Recommended] – Do NOT select Virtualization. If you do require Xen virtualization. Install it after FC6 is complete.

X Windows System – [Recommended] – Add switchdesk.

Install the selected packages and reboot.

For users who opted to install grub on the first sector of the / partition instead of the MBR, you will be required to setup NTLDR to boot Linux.

For the first boot:

Display Settings — Display settings are automatically detected and set. The resolution and scan rate may be significantly different than your typical settings. Just follow through the first boot process and set the proper resolution once you login.

Firewall – It is recommended you learn to use your firewall regardless of your internet connection or if you have a hardware router/firewall (D-Link, Netgear, etc.).

Security Enhanced Linux Setting – SELinux is significantly improved since FC5 and interferes less with plugins and application, even so SELinux will require extra settings and configuration to get certain applications to work properly. SELinux will always provide greater security but will also add nuisances. (It is easier to disable SELinux now and enable it later, than the opposite.) However, I recommend people try SELinux first. I have SELinux = Enforcing without many problems.

Date and Time – Network Time Protocol – Enable this ONLY if you have an active working internet connection that is on (ex: broadband, T1, DSL). Do not enable NTP Broadcast unless you have other linux machines on your network.

System User – Create 1 user account for yourself. Always use that account DO NOT use root as your personal account. This is a cause of many mistakes, and root was never intended for personal use.

26 October 2006

Fedora Core, like all other Linux distributions, has a root user and has individual users. The root is the “superuser”, somewhat similar to “Administrator” in Windows.

Use your personal account for daily use root only for adminstration/configuration. To run as ‘root’ use su or sudo. However sudo requires setup. As root run:

echo 'loginname ALL=(ALL) ALL' >> /etc/sudoers
Where 'loginname' is your user account.
Use 'ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL' if you don't want to be prompted a password.
If you are prompted for a password with 'sudo' it is the user password, not root.

17 January 2007

Fedora Core uses yum to install and update its software. When connected to the internet it will automatically determine application dependancies.

Fedora Repositories

Fedora has 3 repositories enabled by default: core (the same packages that come on CD’s/DVD), updates (updated packages, newer than core) and extras (countless other applications not included on CD’s/DVD).

These repositories ‘sign’ their RPM file’s to make sure they are valid when downloaded. Import the GPG keys to these repositories:

For applications that are against Fedora policies (MP3, DVD, MPEG, NTFS, etc). A third party repository should be used. For the purpose of this guide, (most) all needs are met by the Livna repository. (Note: the Livna repository is NOT compatible with the Freshrpms repository.)

After yum downloads the application or update requested it will prompt to install. This is good for learners or to keep track of what is happening. Applications can possibly be UN-installed in a update as well. If you wish yum to automatically install downloads and make changes, run yum with the -y (answer “yes”) option.

# sudo yum -y install application_name

NOTE: Full System Updates

If you run the following, EVERY SINGLE RPM that has an available update through ANY repository will be updated.

[mirandam@charon ~]$ sudo yum update

Generally speaking this is highly recommended the FIRST time you install Fedora (if you have high speed internet). After that, full system updates are probably less necessary. Keep in mind that updates, may update all their dependancies, which can lead to long download times. Often a new update may break something that already worked. Please understand what you are doing before running continuous updates.

If a kernel update is installed at the same time, then a reboot will be required. If not, then simply log out completely of Gnome or KDE and the Nvidia driver should load. The Nvidia logo will flash quickly once.

8 October 2006

Fedora Core 6 ships and uses GCC 4.1. Some applications that were compiled with an older GCC (ex: 3.2) will require compatibility libraries. Make sure to have the following RPM’s installed. These are included with the FC6 CD-disk3 or DVD or online (ftp, yum, etc).

26 October 2006

This is an optional step.

FC6 includes GCC 4.1 compiler. Some applications will NOT compile in GCC 4.1. You can install GCC 3.4 to allow compiling applications which do not yet support GCC 4.1. Make sure to have the following RPM’s installed. These are included with the FC6 CD’s or DVD or online (ftp, yum, etc).

Users without yum: The dependancies for Amarok have changed since FC6 was released and with over 30MB in downloads, I do not recommend installing manually. (Please contact me if you require further assistance).

Amarok Engine: Amarok requires you to select an “engine” which can play different media. The current support engines are Xine/Gstreamer and RealPlayer/HelixPlayer. If you installed the gstreamer-plugins-ugly or amarok-extras-nonfree the Xine engine will be default. (Recommended)

If you require the RealPlayer engine (or the Xine engine will not work), first install Realplayer and make the following changes:

17 January 2007

The Macromedia(Adobe) Flash plugin is can be installed either from Adobe’s website or the Macromedia Flash Linux repository (recommended). Please note the plugin will not work directly on 64-bit browsers without some re-configuration.

For yum users:

Install the macromedia.repo file to your repositories, and install through yum:

30 May 2007

NOTE: The following instructions have been switched back to Java 1.5 as version 1.6 has been troublesome. Users who wish to use 1.6 can read Fedora 7 – Java.

NOTE: These instructions are for using Sun Java for the web browser and using Java dependant applications. This is not meant for developers. The official recommendation from Fedora can be found on http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/JavaFAQ. However the following instructions are simple for non-developers or users who don’t use yum.

NOTE: Fedora Core advises AGAINST using the Sun Java RPM<!– as it can be replaced by an Fedora update using yum–>. If you do not use yum or do not have any Fedora/GNU java installed this will not affect you. If you are using yum and installed the RPM it is recommended to remove it:

Patch: As proposed on the fedora-list there is a quick solution with this: acroread.patch. This should do the same steps as above. Warning: This patch is only known to work for versions 7.0.8 and 7.0.9.

It is best to have Samba installed in the installation process. If not yum users can install using: Add/Remove Software > Servers > Windows File Server. Users without yum can install the following packages from their CD’s (or download): samba, samba-common, samba-client.

2. Add Shares

You must edit /etc/samba/smb.conf as root: (use nano instead of gedit if you do not have a GUI)

If home data (all personal files under /home/username) is to be accessible, then set 'browseable = yes' under [homes] (~line 166). This configuration file is very descriptive, read through it to get more ideas or information.

3. Add Users

To access shares, you must be a valid user. Add valid users AND passwords using the smbpasswd command.

This login name WILL be the login name and password you use from Windows to access your Linux computer. The password does NOT need to match your Linux password.

Windows uses a different filesystem (NTFS) to store files. In order for Fedora to read that filesystem, you require NTFS support in your kernel. You can either recompile your kernel for NTFS read support -OR- obtain the proper kernel module.

To setup NTFS access you must (1) install NTFS support, (2) check how many partitions you have, (3) create mount points, (4) mount partitions, and (5) update fstab to mount at next boot.

NOTE: Previously Livna was recommended. However that solution has been known to be problematic in that it may update your kernel, which is normal behaviour. It is recommended to use NTFS-3G instead as it is supported in Fedora Extras and does NOT require kernel updates/upgrades. NTFS-3G also provides safe read-write access. (However SELinux may cause some problems for NTFS-3G.)

You do not have to use these names, if you prefer to create folders such as movies, documents, or winxp, any name will work (without spaces).

4. Mount Partitions

Using NTFS-3G, we can mount the NTFS partition read-write, however it is recommended for novices as read-only. The following mounts and sets the permissions so all users can read the contents of each partition.

Read/Write Access: The above is for read-only access. In order to mount read/write, you must use the rw,defaults,umask=0000. Example:

/dev/hda1 /media/c_drive ntfs-3g rw,defaults,umask=0000 0 0

Done!

NOTE: SELinux Problems

Users of SELinux will fix Fedora blocks the automounting of ntfs partitions when using NTFS-3G. This is a Fedora/SELinux bug, not NTFS-3G. Some support can be found on the NTFS-3G support page.. However for now users can mount everything when they log in by running:

[mirandam@charon ~]$ sudo mount -a

NOTE for FAT32 users

If you have FAT32 or FAT16 partitions, instead of ntfs-3g above you can use vfat to mount your partitions. No extra modules or downloads are required, this is built into the kernel. Just replace vfat for every place we have ntfs-3g when mounting and when editting /etc/fstab.

FAT32/FAT16 read and write is supported. If you wish to mount read/write, then use: '-rw' for Step 4. Mounting Partitions, and 'rw,defaults,umask=0000 0 0' for Step 5. Updating /etc/fstab.

NOTE for Livna NTFS Modules

The Livna NTFS modules are read-only access. I do not recommend using them due to the kernel dependancy. If you require them or NTFS-3G will not work then first setup the Livna repository. Then you can install them:

31 May 2007

NOTE: If there is a real problem which is solved by disabling IPv6, then that is not normal — that means there is a bug either in Fedora or (more likely these days) a problem with the local network (or nameservers) which should be reported and fixed. If there’s a real problem you should report the problem in Redhat bugzilla or to your ISP/network admin.

FC6 has the most IPv6 support than in previous releases. Most likely you do not use IPv6. If you wish to eliminate the slight extra resources consumed by enabling IPv6, then you may do the following steps.

Setting Login Screen Defaults

1 March 2006Incomplete
EDIT /etc/sysconfig/desktop
Default Login to KDE: Fedora by default makes everyone login to Gnome.
If you prefer everyone to login to KDE by default.
CHANGE from
DESKTOP="GNOME"
to:
DESKTOP="KDE"
KDE Login Manager: Fedora by default uses the Gnome Login Manager (gdm).
If you prefer to use the KDE Login Manager (kdm).
ADD the line:
DISPLAYMANAGER="KDE"
Changing Preferences: You can change the preferences for login managers.
For Gnome/gdm: Run 'gdmsetup'
For KDE/kdm: Run the KDE Control Center > System Administration > Login Manager.

11 October 2006

This package provides kernel headers and makefiles sufficient to build modules against the kernel package. The kernel headers are necessary if you require to install a driver (for example: Nvidia, ndiswrapper, Cisco VPN, etc.). If a driver requires kernel sources, it may be sufficient to install only the kernel headers.

The kernel headers The Kernel Headers are available through the kernel-devel RPM. This may or may not be installed by Fedora. This package can be installed from your FC6 CD’s, DVD’s or online through FTP or yum.

Look on online online and make sure you match your system, using the uname command. For example:

If you updated your kernel, then the typically the last 2 or 3 releases of the source of the kernel will be available though the Fedora updates. IF YOU REQUIRE you can (try to) match the kernel source with your running kernel.

The source files will be properly located in /usr/src/redhat/BUILD/kernel-2.6.18/. There are 2 useful directories:

linux-2.6.18.ARCH/
This will have the standard kernel.org kernel WITH Fedora patches and updates. The ARCH architecture will match the output of uname -m, usually i686. You may use noarch for the target= option if you wish.

vanilla/
This will have the standard kernel.org kernel ONLY (no patches or updates).

NOTE: Users of x86_64 architecture may experience the following error: